waitingondad

[waitingondad]

Waiting on dad to take a goddamn hint because I blocked his phone number and his email address, yet he still comes to my window and bangs on it yelling for me to read his text. Called the cops, they gave him a trespass warning. If he does it again, it’s jail.

[waitingondad]

Waiting on my dad to ever own up to anything he’s ever done

I wrote a letter to my dad explaining how I feel and the trauma he has caused me from the past... My therapist has read it and thinks it’s a well written letter. I don’t know if I have the courage to give it to him though. Send me support please 😫

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Waiting on dad to take a fucking hint

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Fashionable as always.

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Waiting on Dad to reimburse me for the second birthday dinner in a row.

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Waiting on dad to quit being a selfish dick

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“My father died in his sleep last year. Right after my birthday. I didn’t have a good relationship with him. He left the family when I was ten. We had good moments but we were never really close. I wanted him to understand me. I wanted him to realize that I needed support, and love, and somebody to take care of me. I needed him to say ‘I’m sorry.’ But he never did. Whenever we talked, all he cared about was getting across his side of the story. And then he died. And now I have to forgive someone who can’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ I feel like I’m playing this game of chess. And I have to keep making moves, or nothing will ever change. Except that there’s nobody sitting across from me anymore. And I can only guess the moves that he’d make.” (St. Petersburg, Russia)

[waitingondad]

So from like my freshman year in high school onward my mom was convinced that I was on the autism spectrum, just very low on the autism spectrum, so I was very high functioning, just autistic enough to be considered autistic. And for a while I accepted it because prior to that it was ADD and depression and all this other shit that I’d been medicated for. I grew up with this really intimate knowledge of my mental health and what I was doing about it, how it could be treated, therapy, etc. It’s why I’m always really willing to advise friends and strangers about their own forays into mental healthcare. (hmu btw)

But after high school, after the stresses and deadlines were done, I took a year off from school, got married, it immediately went down the toilet because the guy I married turned out to be a compulsive liar (big story, won’t go into it) so three months later that was over, and I eventually got into some university courses. A very light course load. It sucked mostly because I lived nowhere near the campus and couldn’t live on campus because it was so goddamn expensive. But I got through a couple semesters and eventually decided it wasn’t worth it. No medication, and I did just fine making friends and interacting with people. 

Fast forward to today and I’ve been thinking about this whole spectrum thing that I’d been talked into. Was it really true at all? The ADD I could completely believe. I used to get headaches from trying to concentrate on one thing for too long. Actual splitting headaches. Not from looking at one thing or making my eyes tired, but I just couldn’t bear to work on one thing for so long without extra stimulation or frequent breaks. And eventually I outgrew the ADD, as some people do. 

But autism? Aspergers, as mum thought for a while? That seemed like a stretch. None of my friends seemed to agree. I can make small talk with ease. I don’t really have trouble understanding other people. In fact, I can usually understand other peoples’ viewpoints very well, even when I wholeheartedly disagree with them. I can understand when someone’s view comes from a hateful, unreasonable place that was caused by pain that was never sorted out and never confronted, that they either didn’t understand or didn’t want to deal with. I don’t believe in monsters unless someone has a real chemical imbalance in their brain, and I hesitate to say that anyone should even be removed from society completely rather than treated or at least kept safe and given a secure place to live out their days. People make sense to me. They make a lot of sense to me. 

Bright lights don’t bother me. Little scratchy sounds don’t bother me. Textures don’t bother me. I guess having moist hands bothers me, but just because if I pet my cat with wet hands, I’ll have fur stuck to my hands.

So none of it made sense. But something did make sense. My family and the way I interacted with them made sense.

My sister, whom I love, but she’s emotionally distant and tends to stare with a kind of disdainful look when you talk to her. Not sure she even knows she’s doing it, but I really have trouble talking to her for very long without feeling like she’s tired of me or angry that I’m wasting her time. My sentence usually falls apart and I feel like giving up and leaving her alone.

My mother, who was the discipline parent, caretaker, and has anxiety issues. Little things become big problems for her. I tell her to calm down. She sometimes goes without medication without telling me. Once it was very bad while we were cooking and I actually had to tell her to leave, go to the living room, and sit down while I finished things up. I ordered my mother to go sit down. Why does that happen? She still ends up gaslighting me and I don’t know if she even means to. Once before the divorce when she was stressed, she saw me sitting at my computer and screamed “You are such a spoiled BITCH! You have had EVERYTHING handed to you! Never had to work for ANYTHING!” and stormed off. I didn’t know what to do. I eventually just went back to my room and hid for a while. Years later, it somehow came up that she would never, ever call one of her daughters a bitch. I told her yes, she would, and yes, she did. I recounted the incident to her. She insisted it never happened. I told her she didn’t remember because she wasn’t the one who got screamed at. Smaller things happen, too. Just small, day-to-day things. “I prefer it this way” on one day, “Don’t ever do it this way” on another day. I say something as a joke, she stares at me, waiting for me to say something else. It gets awkward, I give up. I say something as a joke another time, she tells me I’m such a funny person.

My father, bipolar disorder. Depression makes him reminisce about all the things he’s done wrong, all the times he’s wasted, makes him sit around and waste more time that he’ll regret later. Typical of depression, I know. Mania makes him spend money, stay up late--sometimes for days at a time--and work on things, and makes him completely lose all interest in everyone else’s well-being aside from when he wants to feel good about his own generosity. Aside from that, he’s narcissistic and also very charismatic. I got along well with him when I was young, but after his first explosive episode of mania, that fell apart. That was also around the time when I first took medications for depression and when I was diagnosed as being on the spectrum. Eventually my mother divorced him, he accidentally burned our house down in the midst of the divorce, and these days he usually only texts me when he wants me to join him for some ill-thought out adventure or lend him money for the cell phone bill. 

I have a job in retail and deal with customers on a regular basis. I do well with my customers and I generally have no problem keeping a smile going, keeping my mood up, and doing well with my coworkers. I asked mum today about the autism spectrum thing. Mum says she thinks I’ve “outgrown it.”

Knowing the people I was living with at home and the interactions mum saw between me and them, she must have thought I was autistic. Who would be able to read those people correctly? Who wouldn’t just fall apart when trying to talk to them? Someone who just stares at you when you talk to them as if you’re wasting their time, as if you’re annoying them just by existing? How can you act like a normal human being when you’re constantly caught off guard by conflicting signals from someone? When you’re told by other people to be glad that your father is still alive, still in your life, yet he only talks to you to boost his ego and ask you for money? 

I don’t know how I could ever act normal around these people. All my life my mother and father have told me how smart and talented I am. Maybe they were right, but I know they hate it when I point out things that I notice about them. I guess I’m not supposed to be smart when it comes to them.

[waitingondad]

so did you just want money or did you seriously just come up with $200 in one day without any trouble whatsoever

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What people who aren’t victims of parental abuse don’t realize is that we’ll talk about our abusive parent like “I fucking HATE MY MOM so much, she should be in prison, etc” then 5 seconds later be like “well she’s trying her hardest, she doesn’t mean it” “My mom just bought me ___ she’s so cool”

Because with most of us our mentality is “that’s still my mother” and having mixed signals of love and hate thrown at you from your own mother since you been born is confusing and scary. Sometimes we can’t help but forgive her over and over. Especially if you have no one else.

#dad for sure

[waitingondad]

“The one I loved most was my last son. My other children were even jealous of our attachment. When he was very young, he would hang out the window and call to me as I left for the office. And when I arrived, I would find his toys in my briefcase. We remained close as he grew older. He was the one who always called me. He was always checking on me. He was always taking me to lunch. But then one day I went to the bank, and a lot of my money was missing. He had been stealing from me. He was falsifying my signature. When I confronted him, he begged on his knees for forgiveness. Then I started getting phone calls. He owed money to people who were threatening to kill him. I went into the slums to find the loan sharks and pay off his debts. I paid them all, with interest. I used to wear nice clothes. I used to have a nice apartment. Now I’m left with nothing but my pension. And my credit is ruined. I sold all my belongings and I’m hiding from him. When I go to sleep at night, I wonder how he is doing. I wonder if he is safe. But I can’t see him. Because if I see him, I will help him again.” (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

[waitingondad]

me: Okay yeah the car sounds do-able. I'll drive it while your license is suspended as long as you can still cover insurance and such.

dad: Sure sounds great

A month later

dad: So yeah could you cover the insurance and the plates by the way the insurance is $200 and the plates are $225.

me: I work part time at a grocery store.

dad: I'm not following.

[waitingondad]

Waiting on dad to... Do whatever.

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Waiting on dad to show up for lunch. It's now 6:08 pm.

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I recently got some new clothes. I'm pretty happy about the ones I picked out and extremely grateful to my father for buying them for me. I don't get new clothes very often and whenever I get clothes in large amounts, they're hand-me-downs. I'm fine with using clothes someone else has enjoyed, but they're not always to my taste, not always the right size, and all the usual problems. 

Buying new clothes has always been kind of scary for me. I'm always wondering what my mom and sister think of me and always overly mindful of myself when they're around, since I know they think I'm mentally unwell, awkward, or whatever else. And despite the fact that they do care, shopping with them is generally a pretty unhappy time.

Mum gets anxious and impatient very quickly, so I end up rushing through my selection and just settling on something that doesn't really fit me. She's usually really judgmental of what I buy, too. She's fond of pinks and pastels while I prefer darker colors and autumn shades. While she agrees that I look good in autumn colors, she usually insists that I should get something brighter than the earthy stuff I love. 

When I shop with my sister, it's a little better, but she's still not interested in what I want. She'll usually suggest something that she would buy. She looks good in bold, summery colors. She likes ruffly bits and lace and things that honestly make clothes pretty uncomfortable to wear. And honestly, she's just not that pleasant of a person. She's usually either disinterested in general, acting like she's stuck babysitting her little sis (even though we're both in our twenties), and seems to hate what I like in just about everything, not just fashion. 

Both of them tend to get annoyed with me for wanting simply-shaped, generally utilitarian clothes. I wear clothes because they keep me covered, keep me warm or cool, and I like jeans that have decent pockets in them. I'm not worried about how jeans make my butt look. I just don't want them to fall off or have a gap on my lower back. 

Mum criticizes my clothes sometimes, saying I shouldn't wear this because it's too tight, or I shouldn't wear that because there are a few small holes in it. But what can I do about this with no income?

My dad is my favorite person to shop with, whenever he can afford to do so. He does the typical man thing of just sitting on a bench by the fitting rooms (or at the kid table at Old Navy, more recently) and just waits while I pick out something I like. I get plenty of time to find something that fits, I get to pick it out myself and not worry about his judgment since he's just happy to see me happy, and I get clothes that I enjoy wearing. 

#personal

[waitingondad]

Waiting on dad to finish sorting his mail.

[waitingondad]

Waiting on dad's sanity to show up

On Monday, dad and I went to a local thrift store. He had some clothes to donate to it, so we pulled up to the side of the building and placed the bag in the donation bin. While we were looking in the bin, we spotted a Little Mermaid vanity. It was this one, minus the child.

He said it was cute, I agreed, and he mused that my sister would have loved it when she was little, since The Little Mermaid was the first movie she ever saw. Regardless, it was in the donation bin and thus not ours to take. We left, he took me home, and I forgot about it.

Today, on Wednesday, dad called me up and said "I'll have to show you my new treasure." I said "Oh? What is it?" He replied "Do you remember that Little Mermaid vanity? Well, I did a little dumpster diving and brought it home with me. It talks and everything! I saw these things go on eBay for anywhere from $50 to $100!"

I really didn't know what to say to him. I figured there was no point in chastising him for what he had done. He's like a dog sometimes; he runs out into the world, grabs something he likes, and brings it back wagging his tail no matter who he's upset or how dumb it was to pick the thing up. Unlike a dog, however, yelling at him and taking the item away doesn't get the message across. Even if he's been a very bad boy and should be ashamed of himself, wagging your finger just won't work.

I didn't think much about it after that. There wasn't much to be done. Thankfully, all his craziness is in his own house twenty-five miles away from mine, so I don't come into direct contact with his insanity unless he drags it into my house.

Later on, mum came home and I told her about his weird/unlawful behavior. She was stunned, but only in how far he had gone. She then informed me that the thrift store's profits went toward funding scholarships for local students. Furthermore, it was a scholarship my older sister had benefitted from. 

Dad called me up again. I informed him that, if he didn't plan on giving it back to the thrift store, he could instead give it to one of my friends who has a young daughter. He then told me he had already spent about $40 on missing accessories to make the vanity complete again. I informed him of the thrift store's scholarship program and how his own daughter had been given one of those scholarships. I asked him how he could do such a thing to someone who had helped his own kid. He didn't have an answer, just a dismissal of any guilt.

So, in conclusion, my father stole from a charity that had directly benefitted one of his own children, plans on selling the stolen item on eBay, yet he sees no issue with any of it.

To make it even better, I'll recall one last story.

One time, dad and I were driving somewhere. He had the radio tuned to Rush Limbaugh, who was talking about food stamps and welfare queens. When the show went to commercials, I asked what was supposed to be done about people who were down on their luck and needed help getting back into society.

Dad said it was the role of charities to take care of them, not tax payers.

#bipolar disorder #mental illness